Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Make Your Own Spinning Wheel!

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Getting started on any new hobby can be expensive, and spinning is no different. Do I want a wheel or a drop spindle to start with? What fiber should I use. How much processing do I want to do myself?
Well, one of the most expensive purchases would be a new wheel, but if you don’t know whether you’ll like this new hobby or not, why not make a cheap inexpensive wheel?
Here, at Rabbit Geek, Franco gives very good instructions complete with pictures (pictures are good!) for making your own wheel out of cardboard, which he calls a Charkha.

He even has a video using the wheel as well as lots of resources for making other different kinds of wheels.

Check out his info on raising bunnies too, a great site!

So, now you’ve got your wheel all set up and have spun up your first hank. Now what?
You have to knit something out of that first yarn. Here’s a cute little dishcloth pattern you can knit up in no time!

Go to DigKnitty Designs for the pattern. She’ll even custom design patterns.

Comments

  1. I’ve been looking for a place to comment on building spinning wheels. I am a retired teacher who, looking for things to fill my time, happened upon “A Wool Gathering” at Youngs’ Dairy in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I was so sucked into the moment that as my wife and I left the parking lot I told her, I’m going to make a spinning wheel. Since then, I have been able to refurbish a few “Great Wheels” with both Minor’s Heads and Bat Heads but mostly Single Spindle-headed spindles. The most difficult part of making a spinning wheel is producing the actual wheel. My first endeavor from scratch was a decorative wagon wheel purchased from Harbor Freight Tools for around $15.00. The table, spindle post and legs were made from old lumber I had and chair legs from “dumpster diving”. I would find a chair thrown away because a leg was broken. I would disassemble the remainder of the chair and save the good legs, turned back spindles and seats. From this I got snagged into a lathe, which I absolutely love. Now I have redone three treadle wheels and have made “cigar box” charkhas for my four daughter’s christmas presents this year. (2008)
    One great idea I was told about was to make the drive belts for the charkhas from O-ring material. I could not find it anywhere. An old friend in the Hydraulics business told me to try Window Screen Spline. He said the composition of the spline was quite similar to the O-ring’s. I cut the spline to length with a long angle, to get more gluing area, and super glued the ends together. Voila! it worked like a charm.
    If anyone wants help with construction or ideas while building a wheel, let me know. I’ll be glad to help, if I can.

  2. I was very excited to see this because I’ve been dying to find a faster way to spin. I have a top whorl drop spindle that I adore, but a wheel is out of my budget. I was just about to throw away this really sturdy box too so I plan on attempting this in the next few weeks. Thanks!

  3. Hi Roy, I met your sister Dorothy last weekend at the Air Force reunion she attended. I’m a drop-spinner and knitter. We were at
    a table with a fellow who knits socks on an antique sock machine he inherited from his aunt. Funny, the conversations you can get into at a banquet.

    I have purchased two spinning wheels for grand daughters. I bought them from Arlene Grahm. You may know her and her shop, Fiberworks from the Wool Gatherings. I wonder if she knows you repair wheels? I’m hoping to get to the gathering on Saturday.

  5. Hi Roy, I would like to take you up on your offer of help. I want to build a spinning wheel and need a set of plans and how to instructions. Can you tell me where to find this. I have been using a drop spindle and I can’t afford to buy a spinning wheel. Any help would be appreciated. Could you email me the informaton? Thank you, Terri

  6. Hi,
    I would love to create my own spinning wheel. I’ve bike wheels and even the peddle, wheel, and table part to an old sewing machine that spins pretty smooth…I would love some ideas… because I’m not sure how a real spinning wheel works…
    thank you from,
    Have-plenty-of-junk-and-want-to-play-Linda

Have you read?

Book Review: Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER

Patty Lyons is known for teaching knitters the how and the why of knitting skills. Her Knitting Bag of Tricks helped knitters learn how stitches work, why we do things the way we do and what might be better alternatives. 

Patty Lyons’ Knitting ER aims to do the same with a particular focus on fixing mistakes in your knitting both before and after you bind off. She has deliberately made mistakes (and tons of accidental ones as well) to teach herself the best methods for fixing everything from a misplaced increase and a dropped edge stitch to faulty cable turns, messed up lace and brioche knitting disasters, to name a few. 

The book starts with a foundation of understanding how stitches work, how to read them, and the basic methods we use for fixing mistakes in knitting: frogging (ripping out several rows at a time), tinking (removing stitches across a row one stitch at a time) and dropping a stitch or several stitches on purpose to fix a mistake and ladder it back up. 

It talks about the most basic mistakes like accidental yarn overs and slipped stitches and how to fix them, as well as tips for using lifelines or slipping a smaller needle into your project to hold the stitches before you rip. 

Then we move on to more complicated fixes like picking up a dropped edge stitch, fixing a dropped cast on stitch, removing the twist from a circular knitting project (which you can only do after the first round is knit; this is an ER not a miracle station), fixing ladders in a project, tinking when you’re worked increases or decreases (or what to do when you forgot to add them) and fixing dropped stitches at the edges or short rows.

After that is the specialist’s office, which covers fix-it techniques you might not ever need, or only rarely, but it’s nice to have a place you can find the solution if you ever do need it. We’re talking fixing mistakes in a lace pattern, dealing with miscrossed cables (and counting rows in the cable so you when when it’s the right time to work it again), colorwork issues and brioche blunders. Some of these diagrams are sure to give you pause if you’ve never done something like dropping down a single cable for 20 rows and reknitting it, but again, it’s nice to know you can do those things if you need to. 

Even if your project is done it’s not too late for the doctor to do some good. You’ll also learn how to use duplicate stitch to make knit and purl stitches on the surface of a knitting project, which allows you to do things like fake a decrease you forgot, add a purl you missed in a textured stitch pattern, even fix mistakes in lace, stranded knitting, brioche and cables. 

There’s also tips for dealing with too tight cast ons and bind offs and floppy necklines, pieces knit too long or too short and very detailed instructions for grafting in probably any situation you might encounter, as well as approaches to major surgery.

A lot in these later chapters is kind of mind blowing, and if you’re not getting it from drawings, there are QR codes to videos that cover a lot of the problems and allow you to see the fixes in another way. And there are cute illustrations on the theme of knitting ER from Franklin Habit, too!

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to fix mistakes, minor or major, without having to rip out all of your knitting, this is the book you’ll want to have on your shelf for ready reference and reassurance throughout your knitting career. 

About the book: 208 pages, paperback, published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $24.99.